Chicken Potpies

This meal was the ultimate team effort. Usually when I make the menu for the week I run out of ideas after three meals and start asking Brett for his input. Usually he has no input at all, which is very frustrating for me. However, last week Brett expressed an interest in making chicken potpies and even found us a recipe to try in that red and white checked Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that EVERYONE seems to own.

Our job assignments were very clear. I was in charge of the goo, Brett was in charge of the crust.

I chopped half an onion, a handful of baby carrots, and one potato. Then I boiled the potatoes and carrots for about 10 minutes (the prep was pretty similar to Cheddar Chowder) and threw in a handful of frozen peas for the last 2 minutes. While that was going, I sauteed the onion in a saucepan with a couple tablespoons of butter (the recipe called for mushrooms too, but I left them out.) I added 1/6 cup of flour and let that cook for about a minute before adding 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, a couple shakes of dried thyme, 1 cup of vegetable broth and 1/2 cup of milk. I stirred and stirred until that stuff got pretty thick, then I added the drained veggies and shredded chicken (leftover from a roasted chicken earlier in week.)

Meanwhile, Brett had been busy with mixing and rolling out the crusts. He just used a recipe for basic pie crust. Our potpie recipe is for the "fake" potpie where the crust is only on top. Brett wanted to do the "real" potpie with the crust all around. I must say that it was a great decision. He fitted our custard cups perfectly.

Of course he had the duty of spooning the goo into the crust and covering them with a top circle of crust.

To help get them in and out of the oven we snuggled the custard cups into a rectangular baking dish. They baked for about 15 minutes and came out gorgeous.

At this point it was nearly 7:30 and I was starving! The only problem with a potpie is you risk extreme mouth burns if you try to eat it right away. The goo is liquid hot magma! Potpies require patience and lots of blowing, and when I'm hungry, patience is not a quality that I possess.

When I could finally start eating it, it tasted pretty good. It was a little on the bland side, so next time I will put more salt and seasoning in the filling. We thought that we would each eat one and then split the third, but we were both pretty full after one. That means that we have one leftover to eat for lunch this weekend! In the future, I think this will be a weekend meal, simply because an hour and a half is too long for a weeknight meal.